Miami Herald, Friday, December 1, 1989
Dorothy Gaiter, Herald Editorial Board

AIDS is so widespread that it's almost impossible to meet someone who hasn't lost, or is losing, a friend or loved one to it.

South Florida's number of AIDS cases is among the nation's highest, so we're fortunate to have a resource like the Miami-based Health Crisis Network. Dennis Edwards, its director of development, says that it's the Southeast's oldest and largest provider of AIDS services. Founded in 1983, it was one of the country's first AIDS organizations to receive United Way funding.

The network has seen 1,600 clients since 1983, primarily people with AIDS or those who test positive for the HIV antibody, and their families or loved ones.

"Many people come in when they're well and we won't see them until later when they get sick," Edwards says. Others become deeply involved in programs that help them as AIDS takes its terrible course.

The network is funded chiefly by donations and receives some support from foundations and reimbursements from the state. It provides emergency help, counseling, referrals to other services. Volunteers transport, shop for, and help take care of personal needs, from cuddling sick and lonely infants at Jackson Memorial Hospital -- this area has the second-highest number of infant cases -- to washing the hair of a sick adult.

Churches and synagogues help raise money and feed the sick. The Florida Bar helps them fight discrimination and insurance problems. Edwards says that some people need help with estate planning or creating living wills that stick.

Volunteers receive extensive training, particularly those who become buddies. Lyn Ellman became a buddy after her son died of cystic fibrosis at 13. Her first two buddies died, and a third is near death.

"I wanted to give direct assistance to someone who had AIDS," she says. "I knew what it was like to watch someone die, going through a long dying process and feeling alone." She sees her work as "being a friend to someone who has started to develop symptoms, visiting them in the hospital, at home, doing laundry, listening, being there," she adds. "When they're feeling well, we might have dinner. Other times, it's keeping up by phone.

"You can't imagine how devastating it is to watch as someone dies, the loss of weight, the anger that they're going to die, that people are letting them die, their doctors and friends. The saddest of all are people without insurance who aren't getting the care they should."

There are programs that promote healthy living, bereavement counseling, and programs for drug addicts, women's groups, and anonymous people who come in and out for help. The hotline number is 634-4636; for Spanish speakers, 324-5148, and toll-free within Florida, 1-800-743-5046. A Haitian psychiatrist speaks Creole.

Counselors talk to gang members and prostitutes. They leave condoms in hotels. Outreach workers also travel to Palm Beach and Broward visiting schools, corporate and government offices, and youth centers such as Liberty City's Belafonte-Tacolcy Center. Southeast Bank and the Fontainebleau Hotel have cared enough about their employees to have network people in to talk with them, Edwards says. Counselors are in big demand, particularly black and Hispanic ones.

The network will observe World AIDS Day with a candlelight march at 7 p.m. from the information booth in front of Bayside to the Bayfront Park Bandshell. There, more than 350 people, many from black churches, will hold an 8 p.m. memorial service followed by a laser show. Rona Harris, director of volunteer services, plans to bring 1,200 candles to hand out. "Nothing would make me happier," she says, "than to run out of them."

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